Arthur Clifton Guyton

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Arthur Clifton Guyton, American medical researcher and educator (born Sept. 8, 1919, Oxford, Miss.—died April 3, 2003, Jackson, Miss.), wrote one of the most widely used medical textbooks in the world, Textbook of Medical Physiology (1956), which was in its 10th edition and had been translated into 15 languages; he also contributed greatly to the understanding of hypertension. As a surgical resident at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1946, Guyton contracted polio, which resulted in permanent paralysis in his right leg, left arm, and both shoulders. While recovering from the disease, he invented a special leg brace and a motorized wheelchair, for which he received a presidential citation. He became chairman of the department of physiology and biophysics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1948. In the 1950s Guyton’s research on hypertension yielded the insight that the amount of blood pumped by the heart is governed not by the heart itself, as had been believed, but rather by the oxygen requirements of the body’s tissues. In the following decade he discovered that the kidneys are the long-term controllers of blood pressure and all other systems are subordinate to them, exerting only short-term control. His 10 children all became doctors.